


Worthwhile

by sheron



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, New Avengers Vol. 1 (2004), POV Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 22:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14091564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: Steve and Tony cuddle, then Tony exhibits the self-preservation instincts of a lemming, and they cuddle some more. That's it, that's the whole story.





	Worthwhile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/gifts).



> This is set sometime after the start of the _New Avengers Vol. 1_ , but before _Iron Man Vol 4 - Extremis_ storyline. Written for Sineala, who has had a very tough couple of months. 
> 
> Hopefully some cuddling will cheer you up :)

 

Steve loves his shield. Sometimes Tony catches him awake in the middle of the night: Steve sits at the corner of the bed, in the dark, silently buffing it with a simple cloth. When Tony wraps his arms around him from behind, Steve's mouth quirks a little but he doesn't let the shield go.

"Can't sleep?" Tony says close to his ear just to feel him shiver.

Steve gives a tired sigh, tilts his head back until they're cheek to cheek. His hands continue to move slowly, almost hypnotically, over the curve of the red, white, and blue disk. "I find it soothing," he answers, and, "Sorry if I woke you."

"Come back to bed," Tony whispers. "I'll make it worth your while."

Steve runs a weary hand across his eyes. "In a minute," he promises.

Tony slides back to his side of the bed and waits, and waits. Steve finishes the polish job on the shield before setting it to lean against their bedroom wall, gleaming.

He crawls into bed, under the covers, and lays a slow, very careful hand across Tony's stomach, so light that it wouldn't have woken him if he hadn't already been awake. Tony opens his eyes and they look at each other for a long moment in the stillness of the room. Then Steve nuzzles his cheek in an apology Tony doesn't care for. He pulls Steve in to him, between his legs, rocks up against Steve and feels him respond, opens his legs a little more.

"You get little enough sleep as it is," Steve whispers, but his demurral dies quickly under the onslaught of hands and lips. Tony is very good about taking him out of his head.

They get very little sleep most nights. Tony is a chronic insomniac and Steve isn't much better, but they're used to working around it. They function. In the middle of a fight, the adrenaline spike takes care of any lingering fatigue. Putting the team together again was a good idea, Tony can admit that to himself now, even though he'd had his doubts initially. If it hadn't been for the breakout at the Raft, maybe they would never have gotten back together, out in the field or between the sheets. But Steve had insisted, and damn, Tony had never been happier he followed his lead.

Even now, up in the air, in the suit, he still feels Steve, around and inside him. It's more than the memory from last night; it's a thrumming satisfaction in his limbs, a wholeness that he hadn't felt before. He feels full. Tony's mind skitters over the thought; he snickers. Well, Steve can certainly fill him up. 

Even from up high, examining the chaotic situation on the ground, his eyes involuntary look for Steve. Tony locates him, a blond spot on the roof below, slinging his shield at one of the grey-skinned aliens ― it's always _something_ , this time it's aliens ― and bringing the enemy down. With a feral smile and far more intensity than required, Tony flings himself into the fray at the street level, firing missiles to keep the enemy away from the gawking civilians huddling behind one of the cars. Energy blasts whiz around him, and he weaves through the air, drawing the fight with him. For the time being his mind is occupied with analyzing how to disable their main canon. That thing spits out what look a bit like pure energy and a bit like Thor's lightning, but in function the closest Tony can map it to is some sort of disintegrator ray, and even that's based mostly off the soot marks left behind. That's all that's left behind: just soot marks. Whatever the weapon hits looks like it was vaporized. Luckily for them, it has a significant recharge time.

Then he hears a cry on the comms, and his attention is immediately diverted because that's Steve's voice, Steve crying out in shock. One of the aliens must have gotten the jump on him, and in a stretched out moment that seems to last forever, Tony tilts his head up and sees Steve's uncontrolled drop through the air. Everything in Tony tightens and he prepares to switch directions in a split second, but then almost instantly the danger is past. Steve is out of harm's way. Spiderman's web caught him mid-fall, and swung him to the nearest rooftop, out of reach of any enemy. 

Peter doesn't have the time to do the same for Steve's shield and it plunges down to the ground. The alien leader, a big guy, clearly frustrated by its irrepressible presence in battle, aims his huge ― awesome-looking; Tony doesn't swoon ― canon straight at the shield. 

Fuck no. 

Tony fires the repulsors on his boots, and just barely makes it in time to push the shield out of the way of the energy blast.

Cap's shield clangs against the wall of a nearby building, and falls the rest of the way to the ground, safe and sound. The Iron Man suit isn't so lucky. Even through the armor, Tony feels the energy blasts slide across his left leg, from the knee down, in a sensation not unlike the tickle of electricity. Then the burning pain hits and that's all he is aware of for a while. Just _pain_. Crushing crippling agony that he wants to curl and hide from, except there's nowhere to hide. The only reason he knows he's still got his leg is because it hurts like it's been set on fire, like he's had a part of his skin flayed off.

At this acceleration, and too out of control to swerve, Tony hits the building at high enough speed he feels the armor bounce off the concrete wall. Next thing he knows, the ground rushes up to meet him and gives him a harsh smack, too. For a long moment he lies in a daze.

From above he hears a sharp cry: "Tony!" 

_Steve?_

He's no use to anyone like this. Tony tries to rise up on his armored elbows but that just puts pressure on the injury and he collapses on the ground, trying not to howl. When the pain subsides enough that he can unclenches his teeth, he manages to gasp, "Armor, " trying to give the command to take him up, but his throat won't cough up the rest of the words. His vision grows blurry and the wavering grip he has on consciousness slips.  


 

* * *

 

He reopens his eyes in his own bed. His and Steve's bed. That's still new. They've been together like this for a few months, but Tony's breath still catches over the thought, skips over it without examining the idea too closely. Thinking about it is a bit like looking into the sun: painful and bright.

Steve's in a chair next to him, dressed in a shirt and sweatpants, chin nodding down to his chest, his blond hair matted and disordered like he'd been running his hands through it. He has the shield on his lap. Tony smiles at seeing it whole and undamaged. His eyes roam over Steve's sleeping form, assuring himself that all is well. Then he moves and realizes he can barely feel his left leg, laying where it is elevated on a pillow, bandages swaddling it from his toes most of the way up the knee. He tries to wiggle his toes, but it's all pins and needles. A local anesthetic, then.

He starts to run his tongue over his lips to wet them and his face scrunches up in pain. He must have bitten his lip bloody earlier. Tony makes a sound because Steve's head jerks up from his chest and his eyes immediately fly to Tony's.

"You're awake," Steve says with evident relief. He looks skittish and he clearly hadn't meant to fall asleep ― after a quick check of surroundings, Steve rubs the back of his own neck, in a self-conscious tick. It's thoroughly endearing.

"Can't feel my leg," Tony says with a quirk of lips mean to set Steve at ease, his words still slurring a little despite how much he wants to pull himself together. "I still have my leg, don't I?" he asks, gamely ignoring the undercurrent of fear that shoots through him. What if―

"Of course, Tony," Steve says, almost exasperated and Tony calms. He watches as Steve carefully sets the shield down by the bed, then their eyes meet again. There's something thoroughly soothing about the way Steve is looking at him, like― "You're going to be okay. The armor took the brunt of it." Then, Steve starts to frown and adds, "But when you are feeling better, we're gonna have a conversation about what happened."

"What did happen?" Tony asks and gratefully drinks cool water from the glass Steve hands him. He can feel his sweaty hair plastered against his forehead and brushes it away, before collapsing back on the pillows with a groan. He is curious about the aliens, but not overwhelmingly so. The Avengers have obviously taken care of the problem while he was out, and he'd like to know how. Steve just shakes his head: not the time.

He climbs on the bed next to Tony, who tenses at first not sure what to expect, then obediently lifts his head to let Steve slide a hand under it so he could pull Tony closer, in a loose embrace that won't jostle his healing leg. Steve's skin feels slightly cool against his neck. Tony relaxes in his strong arms, all the tension melting away, and sighs sleepily. He really is tired. He should ask more questions, get out of bed and get started analyzing alien tech, but at that moment with his eyes drooping slightly, he just wants to sink into Steve's warmth and stay there, safe forever. Or at least for five more minutes. "It could have been much worse," Steve whispers into his hair. "You barely made it in time."

"The shield's okay though?" Tony asks just to make sure. He saw it and it looked fine, but Steve says nothing, just pulls Tony closer yet and presses little kisses into his hair. Tony nuzzles his neck and smiles at the show of affection. It reads as gratitude. Steve has nothing to be grateful for here. Tony knows how much the shield means to him. His leg will heal. If given any chance, he'd do it all over again. He tries to stay awake, murmurs, "While I was out I realized I can improve the thrust on the boots at least a percentage point―" he yawns. The idea actually came to him while the energy from the alien's blast burned through his leg, but Tony doesn't want to bring that up, "―so that next time I'll be faster." 

"You'd better be, Avenger," Steve commands, but the voice, gruff with emotion, gives him away. His fingers run up and down Tony's bare arm, feather light. It's a bit like what he does with the shield, Tony thinks, touching it with a kind of reverence, seeking some comfort. Tony mouths at Steve's neck and grins against the soft skin when he feels Steve's breath catch. Steve's body always responds to Tony. It's something joyous, that knowledge, something he keeps deep inside his heart like a secret they both share.

Steve tips his chin to swoop down and catch Tony's mouth. Their lips meet lightly, almost lazily.

 _I love you_ , Tony thinks. He wants to press the words into Steve's skin, his sweet, hot mouth. He doesn't want to hear it back; that's not necessary, it's not what he needs. Tony has felt like this about Steve for so long that it's a comfortable feeling that doesn't require much maintenance or validation. It just is. So they kiss for a moment, nothing more. Tony knows how to kiss him. Steve won't let things progress further now, not with Tony's leg injured, but he doesn't seem to want to go anywhere either. He must be busy, Tony thinks guiltily, but after the kiss ends, Steve just lies there and pets Tony, cuddles with him in their big bed like he's got nowhere better to be and nothing better to be doing, until Tony's eyes slide shut and sleep sweeps him away.  


 

* * *

 

Tony doesn't sleep much, never has. Around five in the morning he gives up trying, dislodges Steve's comforting arm around his middle, and crawls out of bed, moving quietly the way he learned how when he started sleeping next to a super soldier. He swipes a dark blue silk robe off the back of the chair on the other side of the room, where the desk is, and dresses, tying the belt around his waist to keep it in place. His left leg makes itself known with an ache and itchiness, and he gratefully collapses into the leather chair by the desk. While he can't sleep, and he can't wander the city or fly the armor, Tony can still work. He glances back at Steve, spread out on his stomach and hugging the pillow, the tips of his toes just peeking out under the covers. It's a soothing sight and a part of him wants to climb straight back into bed, to wrap himself in Steve again and stay there. Steve's shield gleams from its place at the side of the wall and reminds him that his armor is probably in pieces, that he's got more work than he knows what to do with. Tony passes a hand over the eyes to wipes away the remains of sleep. He can jot down his ideas for the next version of Iron Man armor, and then there are company documents to go through and sign.

It's a couple of hours before Steve stirs.

Grateful that he can stretch without worrying about the chair creaking, Tony arches his back. By now, his leg is aching like the devil, and he still hasn't found a comfortable position for it under the desk. Any painkillers stronger than Tylenol are right out, he can't risk it. When he comes out of his full body stretch, Steve is awake. He looks nothing like the warm and comfortable Steve that Tony was treated to last evening. This morning's Steve is tense, his jerk of the head up from the pillow a sharp movement, eyes roaming the room until they fall on Tony. Some tension immediately goes out of Steve's shoulders.

"Hey," Tony offers with a smile.

"Hey, yourself," Steve sits up on his side of the bed, blankets pooling in his lap. "You know you need to keep that leg elevated." Steve is already frowning down at it. That sure didn't take long.

"It's alright. Doesn't hurt much." Well, compared to how it felt under the energy beam that's the truth anyway. When Steve only frowns harder, Tony gets a burst of energy out of nowhere to keep talking, filling the silence with ideas. "I was thinking about the propulsion system in my armor. I realized that I lost some time on the turn, due to inertia― That's not new. But we had a few proposals in the research community recently about inertial dampening that I am going to take a closer look at. I didn't put the two and two together with my armor, but, well, I think I can use the idea to shave off a good percentage point off the reaction time." Tony keeps gabbing, and Steve just makes an impatient beckoning motion with his hand.

"Will you just―."

"Five more minutes, mom," Tony says with a tiny smile, and lowers his eyes to his papers.

He hears Steve sigh, before the man lets it go. For now, anyway. Steve gets up off the bed and goes to the adjacent bathroom, while Tony turns his mind to his engineering problem. He sees the solution in his head, time to prove it out with math.

The sound of the door shutting startles him from his equations some time later, and he glances up to see Steve exit, all damp skin and muscles, like a Greek god, clad in only a towel, steam wafting around him. Tony's mouth goes slightly dry and his pencil creaks in his hands when he squeezes too hard. Steve looks at Tony with a furrowed brow, then his expression smooths out.

He expects Steve to head for the closet to dress, but instead he marches over to Tony and kneels on one foot. The towel rides up enticingly, revealing a massive well-muscled thigh and Tony's eyes drop down, electricity racing up his spine.

"You've had your fun," Steve says, sliding his hands around Tony's torso, "and you need to rest. You need to _heal_ , Tony."

"I need to do something useful," Tony mutters, with a side-glance at the stack of papers on the desk. He's got piles of work and that's just the company stuff. Avengers themselves are a full time job. He keeps getting...distracted. Tony's eyes stray back to the tiny towel around Steve's waist and stay there, utterly fascinated by each fold.

"You need to eat. You need to sleep," Steve insists. His voice grows rougher, "You _need_ to stop throwing yourself in danger like you are invincible."

With a sense of doom, Tony glances up from the towel to Steve's face, meet his eyes. And, oh yeah, he's so screwed. His insights shrivel at the sharpness of Steve's gaze, the straight line of his lips. That unhappy expression? Tony put it there.

"You know, I can do both sides of this argument by now," Tony says with false cheer.

Steve snorts. "You always think you know what I'm gonna say before I say it." If Tony didn't know him better he'd miss the hurt lurking underneath the carefully calm tones.

Just like that, all fight goes out of him. Tony leans forward, giving a quick kiss to Steve's forehead, before tilting his head and leaning his cheek against the top of Steve's head, against his silky golden hair. So soft. "Not always," he murmurs, hoping Steve hears the apology there, if he can't offer a capitulation. His arms circle Steve's neck. "Sometimes you surprise me." He just wants to stay like this for a moment, with his eyes closed, his cheek rubbing gently against Steve's hair. Soon, he has to get back to work.

A long moment of stillness is interrupted when Steve surprises the hell out of him by putting his hands under Tony's ass and lifting him bodily out of the chair. There's a second of disorientation as Tony grabs Steve's shoulders for balance, and then Steve is standing up and walking them towards the bed, Tony's thighs around him, legs dangling freely at his sides. There's a smirk lurking on Steve's lips when he goes to set Tony down on the covers, his head on the pillows at the head of the bed, but oh ho, Tony isn't letting his arms unwind, so Steve ends up leaning over him, one knee on the bed to prop himself up without collapsing on top of Tony.

"Hi," Tony drawls into Steve's face, pulling him closer with a wild grin. Two can play this game.

Steve gives him a quick victor's kiss, or something that means to be a quick kiss. It lingers. And okay, he has Tony lying down and Tony can't say he minds too much if this is what he gets out of it, but Steve isn't getting away so easily. Tony pushes with his tongue and ah, Steve's mouth opens for him with unconditional sweetness. 

They forget the world and make out for a while, until Steve ends up pressing a little too hard into Tony and his injury flares up with a burst of pain. Steve feels the flinch in Tony's body before he is even aware he tensed up, and yanks himself off Tony.

"It's fine," Tony growls, because Steve's face is full of mother-hen concern again. The moment is gone. Leaning back against the pillows, Tony watches Steve settle at his feet and pull the injured leg into his lap, setting it high up on his stomach. Elevating it. He is like a bulldog with a bone once he decided something is _needed_. Tony wiggles his toes against Steve's chiseled abs, partly to show him he's fine, partly to tickle, and gets a softening of the mouth from the other man. In response, Steve rubs his thumb across the skin just at the edge of the bandage. Oh.

Tony shuts his eyes and groans softly.

"Itchy?" Steve asks, continuing to rub that spot where the threads of the bandaged had been tickling the skin in the singularly infuriating fashion. Neither of them are strangers to healing injuries, but familiarity doesn't bring relief. Steve's fingers, making soothing circles on the skin atop Tony's foot, are quite another matter.

"Keep doing that," Tony murmurs, unconsciously sinking deeper into the pillows. He has to admit, silently and only to himself, that his leg lets up on aching now that it's elevated so the blood is no longer pumping through it quite as much. "Right there," he grunts when Steve find a particularly egregious spot of skin between his toes.

"When you decide," Steve starts talking while still massaging his foot, "you must be taking into account a hundred things at once. You consider all the variables. So somewhere in your equation it must be acceptable somehow, getting hurt like this. Maybe dying. You say you know me, and you say you know what I'm going to say, but however it factors in, it doesn't change the result."

"I do know you," Tony agrees, wishing he could escape this script, this never ending story. "That's not a bad thing." He feels his throat tighten. He knows what happens next: they argue, Steve gets frustrated. One day, he gets frustrated enough to leave for good. Maybe today.

"If you know all the answers, why does it always end with you hurt? Tell me that, Tony."

His throat tightening some more, Tony feels his eyes prickle and he resolutely lifts them to the ceiling. He stays silent. It's impossible to explain. It's not as if he wants to die. It's just as Steve said, Tony knows what's what. He knows what all the variables are, where the balance is between the cost and what something is worth. In that split second when he saw that the shield was about to be destroyed, there was no choice. Letting it go was never an option, because the shield is a part of Steve.

Tony always looks for that shield in battle; just seeing those concentric circles with the star in the middle means that Steve's nearby and a portion of Tony's mind can relax. He knows it's the first thing Steve's eyes go to when he enters the room. His old girl, he calls it. The shield keeps Steve safe. Without it, those bullets, those enemy attacks would tear into Steve; and Tony is never, ever letting that happen. He'll make sure Steve is never without that shield.

But knowing all that doesn't help him now with Steve's eyes focusing Tony down, asking him to do more, to be more, for _them_.

"Steve..." Tony tries, and swallows against his rough voice, tries again, "I made it just in the nick of time. Okay, yes, it grazed me and I'll do better next time, I swear. But I―I understood the risks and I knew it would be okay, in the end."

"Right," Steve says shortly, clearly unsatisfied.

Seeing him so on edge, brimming with frustration, Tony wonders for a moment if this is it. If this is how they fall. One day Steve is going to decide he's had enough, that he doesn't want to put up with Tony's ideas, his decisions, his solo act. Maybe not right now, not today, not yet, but some day soon, Steve's gonna realize he is just wasting his time and he is going to leave. Sometimes Tony thinks he's been waiting for the other shoe to drop for so long that the wait is worse than the eventual heartbreak. Other times he knows he is kidding himself. He'll take everything Steve has to offer, every moment, for as long as this lasts. He is gonna love Steve with all his heart and he isn't going to stop being who he is, either. What would be the point? He knows it was the right thing to do and that alone is enough to sustain him through _anything_.

But Steve doesn't seem like he is planning to fight. Steve's hands still; two warm weights gently bracketing Tony's ankle. "Doesn't really matter what I say, does it?" he doesn't sound angry. His acceptance lodges itself in Tony's heart and it hurts like hell. "I wish you'd hear me, not whatever you've already decided in your head." Carefully, Steve sets Tony's foot down on the bed, and slides another pillow underneath to prop it up. Tony immediately misses the warmth of his chest against his foot, but he can't ask for it back. 

He startles when instead of moving away, Steve shifts forward, lying down on his side next to Tony, propping his head up on one arm. Steve says, "Maybe I can't convince you. Not with words anyway." With a deliberate move, he nuzzles Tony's ear, nips lightly at it. It takes Tony an embarrassingly long moment to understand the true meaning of what Steve is telling him. 

He barks out a laugh, but it cuts off quickly.

Steve doesn't say anything more, yet his intention is plain when he moves to press a kiss to Tony's lips, lingers there, sucking sweetly against his mouth. "You're gonna... what...?" Tony stumbles over the idea. The thought of Steve thinking this is the way to fix Tony. With his mouth, his breath, his blunt fingers stroking Tony's cheek, his presence everywhere... 

"Maybe I'll just make you feel so good you'll _want_ to stick around on this plane of existence," Steve says archly.

Tony gapes at him for one unflattering moment, but Steve just meets his eyes steadily, and then Tony is chuckling for a brief and bright moment. It's so bullheaded, so very _Steve_ that Tony really should have seen it coming. Somehow, he should have. He didn't, though. Steve has a way of surprising him when he least expects it. The thought of changing Tony's thought patterns just by making him feel good is both innocent and blindingly optimistic.

"Did you really...?"

"You heard me." There's a gleam in Steve's eyes now, and half of it is that familiar determination, but it mixes with excitement, with a sense of curious enthusiasm.

"Well," Tony laughs. He never thought he'd see the day. Steve Rogers offering to...make it worth his while... in bed. Tony is really laughing, and he only huffs to a pause when he sees Steve blink down at him, uncertainty crawling into his previously comfortable expression. There's a wall coming up behind his eyes as quickly as his confidence flags, and Tony feels a sharp twist in his gut. He should never make Steve doubt himself. Definitely not about this. 

"Please," he says quickly, and shimmies earnestly closer to Steve, who's got a shyness in his eyes that tries to be brave, tries to fight against his nerves and is visibly struggling. "You're very welcome to try." Tony's laughter softens into a smile that he hopes is on the sweeter side. He nestles up close and wraps an arm around Steve's middle, pulling him to himself. If the look in Steve's eyes is anything to go by, it's beginning to work. "Something tells me I'll enjoy the experience," he says with wide, earnest eyes. Letting his true feelings show on his face, putting it all out there, because wonderful, gorgeous Steve deserves to know he is wanted, always.

"Something tells me we both will," Steve says dryly and breaks into a pleased little smile that makes Tony's heart flip over in his chest. How he loves this man.

Tony slides his hands down his back to Steve's ass and grips, and is rewarded by Steve rolling and very carefully sliding on top of him to kiss him some more. The rest of the world stands still.

 

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr post](https://sheronwrites.tumblr.com/post/172243977299/worthwhile-by-sheron-word-count-4733-fandom) is here.


End file.
